THE FABLE OF THE GULL

This little fable was published in  ROUND, EARTH, POEMS a chapbook published by Jim Sorcic and Jenny Orvino at GUNRUNNER PRESS, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in an edition of 300 copies.  It was later included in CRUISIN' AT THE LIMIT published by Kirk Robertson at Duck Down Press, Fallon, Nevada.

THE FABLE OF THE GULL

Once a gull decided to fly to the moon.  He flew higher 

than the road maps, higher than the desk globes, for it is 

very far to the moon.  After he had been flying for a few

days, he met a king who was also traveling.  “Where

are you going?” said the king.  “I am flying to the moon,”

said the gull.  “Why don’t you come with me,: asked the

king.  “I am going higher than everything, where I shall

stay and be king.”  “No thank you,” said the gull, I don’t

think I shall.”  When the gull reached the moon he heard

the king shouting and looked up to see him.  his voice

was small, because far above everything is a long way.

“Look at me, silly gull.  I am king.  I am higher than

everything.”  “Yes you are,” said the gull, “but to remain

king you must stay there and no one can come near

you.”  And saying this the gull returned to earth and 

played along many oceans.

ABOUT THE TELLINGS

ABOUT THE TELLINGS

(from The Book of Days)

From the far North come

The Tellings.  They come so that

We may learn the many ways of others

Who live here in this place with us,

Even if their voices be small or their habits

Not what we may understand from our own knowing.

Those who travel, those who name, bring

The Tellings to us in Autumn.  For almost

A week we watch their fires come closer as

They move down from the distances.

When they reach the meadows just beyond

The villages we send the children to them.

For three days they speak only to the children.

This is because the children

Are able to see the magic of The Tellings

More clearly than others.  They will learn

The songs and find roles to assume in the

Ways of The Tellings.  They will show us

What the travelers and those who name

Bring back to us.  They will be the vehicles.

When I was young I was among the first

To see the ladders turning in the air;

The ones of flame, the ones of ice and the ones

Changing color.  My part was that of the long

Bell and I would make its sound often, for it

Was pleasure for all to hear this curious sound.

This was long ago and this Telling is old.

Now we have music and the changing of the forms.

We also know the dance that moves the places of things,

So that which was far away may be near and that

Which was lost or almost forgotten may be found again.

Each time the Telling brings

Us what we do not know.

It is like what you call morning

When all is once again before you and unknown.

One time, in a telling, there came

A great room, so great that mighty

Rivers were within it.  This lasted

Many days and all that was asked there received reply.

We wait now for the return of the children.

Their voices can be heard at the edge of the wood

Lands.  They sound excited.  We are able to hear

Songs we do not know.

I am telling you these things about how we are

So you may come to recognize travelers and those

We name should they come near you in dreams

Or should you, in traveling, come upon things,

Or songs, or places requiring Tellings.  We await you.

PRESERVING WORDS

PRESERVING WORDS

We’ve had some of them stored for years in that wooden pantry just below the cellar stair, where mom kept the plums and tomatoes and pickles.  They were the words.  The special ones we didn’t use everyday.  When guests came we would open some and they would spark conversation.  After dinner with a slice of pie and slice of cheese those deeper ones that stuck to the sides of the jars would be scraped carefully and served up.  The ones that mattered, like blood and its engines, famine and tumult.  They are gone now.  So much time has passed since childhood that even the pantry is difficult to remember, let alone those words.  Still they pulse through our bodies.  Unlike cells they are not replaced every seven years by a new one.  We hold them in our hearts and mouths and call to one another across time as if it were a fence between yards.

ROADS

ROADS

Somewhere, just outside of where

You live, a field has opened up and swallowed

An entire portion of history as if it were

The wind.  This was not an earthquake,

Tornado or flood.  It was not the wind or weather

Of any kind at all.  Yet the loss was total.

Memory is locked in cells, a billion patterns

Whirling round a web of friendships, songs,

School days and incidental sightings: you riding

Past on your bicycle on a clear Spring day,

The first roses still struggling against the cool

Rub of the days; the way the oak trees lean

Toward the season, giving us notice.

And then all is gone.  Those people who lived

Here, or near here eighty and more years ago,

Are no longer vertical, no longer blessed by light.

They have no voices.  We walk the same places

They did and there is not one thing we know

About them.

We notice strange configurations of buildings.

A fence that has no  purpose, a row of trees.

A handful of houses that “have always been here.”

Watch the opening of the leaves and flowers.

Look far into the easing of evening across your sight.

Remember all the names of friends, the kinds of music

That we recognize.  May memory serve you well.

Here are bridges.  They were built long before you

Were born.  This one connects one city to another;

This, a country to yet another.  The road here is old.

It was built because and English king needed to get

To the racetrack more quickly.  It runs along the forest

Edge, skirting one hundred villages.  We do not know 

the names of these places.  We name them with our breath.

Our breath names nothing.  All places change.  All naming too.

THE REMEMBERING WIND

Duy Huynh

Warwick Goble

THE REMEMBERING WIND

Spring to Summer, Summer 

The vernal pools with their white birds

Gathered at the edges. The gold

On the rocks. That oak tells

Everything it knows.  This is

The remembering wind.  This

Is its time.  We will see it so 

Seldom we will try to touch

Its tall choirs swirled with clover

fields and flowers of a thousand colors.

We catch at its fine strings, shaking

Ourselves to believe.  This is the 

Remembering wind.  It glistens

Like jewel stone glistens.  We are

Learning to speak once again.

The tall ships move into our

Language, their sails full of 

The Remembering wind.

It is morning.

ANOTHER VAMPIRE......after Kipling

 clouds

 falling

The Change

ANOTHER VAMPIRE

after Kipling

Broken I was and beyond repair

(I never could understand.)

I’d stand in the rain and think it was fair

( I knew I was wrong but I just couldn’t care)

But still I stood and still I stared

(I never could understand.)

I stepped on my dreams, or so it seems

I tried to keep them all clear

But there was never a dawn that could draw me on

( Now I can feel and I tried hard to feel)

And I struggled, but named it fear.

I was loved or thought may be I might

(I never could understand)

Still I leaned into the fight

Broke my spirit to capture the light

(And the light it was never that bright)

(I never could understand.)

Oh the things I would do to make this seem true

Were never enough, much too bland

And now I can feel, As I am able to feel

(But please understand that I barely can feel)

Yet it still seemed all much too grand.

I’m broken apart, like it matters at all

(I never could understand.)

And I’ve tripped on the verge and I crawl

(But it doesn’t seem real, just small)

Still I grew, but was broken, was never so tall

(I never could understand.)

And now in the twilight I beg for a bright light

And it cuts like a curse from a height.

And I’ll never know how it caught me and so

(My soul has gone from me, faith, I never will know)

And I never will understand.

MIRROR IMAGE

Knut Ekwall (1843-1912)

MIRROR IMAGE

He didn’t look at all as he imagined

Himself to look.  When he came

Upon himself reflected his view

Was always, seemingly, oblique.

Obscured at times by serious

Happenstance, flocks of birds,

The whipping of lianas or palm

Fronds against the windows

As the light from the oil lamp

Bounced the reflections off

The glass,  it was not likely

That he would be in any

Space where a proper mirror

Might be found that wasn’t smoked

Or distressed by having the lovely

Mercury scraped from its back,

Making him look tearful or

Extremely lonely as an old 

Waltz might be lonely,

The music unable to bear the weight

Clarity would require and become

Indeterminate, a misfortune.

He became a hostage to his ideas

That everything he saw was

Infected in this way and

The only places comfort could

Be found were  either blasted

Clear of living things or so totally

Overgrown that passage through

To pure sunlight was also seemingly

Impossible  He betrayed himself

To a distant idea that could

convey little, stripped of any

Possessions of perception

He himself might have beyond shadows,

Wings unable to fully open,

A disguise that passed

For recognition with no

Feeling except in irritating memory.